NFL CONFIDENTIAL: Time for Couch to take a back seat

With the NFL Draft about six weeks away, the league's NFL personnel directors got another reminder last week of how difficult it is to evaluate talent.

Five years ago, the Cleveland Browns picked Tim Couch over Donovan McNabb as the first selection in the history of the new franchise.

Couch was supposed to be the cornerstone of a franchise that was formed three years after the first edition of the Browns moved to Baltimore.

Instead, he's being replaced as the starter by Jeff Garcia; has rejected the idea of sticking around as the Browns' backup; and will be heading out of town.

The Browns are going to try to trade him, but other teams know Cleveland is going to have to cut him.

Once he is free, Couch will attempt to catch on as a backup. He's no longer view viewed as a starter around the league after losing the job to Kelly Holcomb last year only to get it back when Holcomb got hurt.

Couch tried to put the best spin on the situation, though officials of the Steelers and Cowboys said publicly they had no interest in him, contrary to rumors.

"Just because coach [Butch] Davis wants to go with someone else, there's no way he can do anything to take away my confidence," Couch told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

"I would've loved to finish my career here, but it didn't work out and now I just have to look ahead," he said. "I have no time to be sad or angry."

Although Jim Plunkett resurrected his career and won two Super Bowls in Oakland after flopping in New England when he was the first pick in the 1971 draft, the odds are against Couch duplicating that feat.

He is likely to be remembered as just another of the disappointing members of the quarterback class of 1999. Five quarterbacks were selected with the first 12 picks and only two -- McNabb and Daunte Culpepper of Minnesota -- are starting.

Couch, Akili Smith and Cade McNown never lived up to their potential.

Chris Palmer, the Browns' first coach, and Dwight Clark, who ran the personnel side, made the decision to pick Couch. They no longer work for the Browns.

If they'd taken McNabb, they might still be on the Browns' payroll.

Other quarterback changes

Garcia's move to Cleveland opens up the starting quarterback job for Tim Rattay in San Francisco.

In other quarterbacks moves during the offseason, Mark Brunell was traded by the Jaguars to Washington and Philadelphia traded A.J. Feeley to Miami. Arizona dumped Jeff Blake and named Josh McCown the starter, and Cincinnati promoted Carson Palmer over Jon Kitna, though Kitna had one of his best seasons last year.

Kitna is a victim of the system. The Bengals paid Palmer a lot of money last year when he was the first pick in the draft and they have to find out if he can play.

There's no time to bring quarterbacks along slowly. By today's standards, letting Palmer sit for a year showed a lot of patience.

The Bengals have to hope Palmer isn't another Couch.

Feeley vs. Fiedler

One of the quarterbacks who appears on the verge of losing his job is Jay Fiedler of the Dolphins.

If the Dolphins were satisfied with Fiedler, they wouldn't have traded for Feeley and given him a five-year, $18 million deal.

Fiedler, though, isn't conceding anything.

He told Miami reporters, "I compete for my job every day, whether or not they bring in A.J. Feeley. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else."

At the news conference when he was introduced, Feeley was avoiding controversy.

"I just want to learn as much as I possibly can from Jay. He has had a lot of success here with the Dolphins and I want to come in here and learn as much as I possibly can and compete with him," he said.

Although coach Dave Wannstedt has always supported Fiedler, it would be be a surprise if Feeley doesn't open the season as the starter.

Lack of loyalty for Lynch

Back in training camp in 1979, a Pittsburgh rookie named Dwaine Board played better at defensive end than veteran Dwight White.

That didn't stop coach Chuck Noll from cutting Board, who went on to have a long career in San Francisco, and keeping White, whose career was over after the 1980 season.

Noll was loyal to White, who helped the Steelers win their fourth Super Bowl that year, and came out of a hospital bed to play in Super Bowl IX. Money never entered into the decision.

That's all changed now. The game is all about money.

Which is why Tampa Bay told safety John Lynch he's out though Lynch has been a mainstay of the team for several years and helped them win a Super Bowl a year ago.

But Lynch was hurt last year and had a salary cap number of more than $6 million this year.

Lynch offered to take a pay cut to stay, but the Bucs have a younger and cheaper alternative in Jermaine Phillips.

Lynch captured the emotion of the situation when he said at a news conference, "I'll be playing somewhere else next year, but I'll always be a Buc at heart."

A Tampa Tribune columnist wrote: "Sure, football is a business. But this was brutal. With all the delicacy of a Sopranos whacking, Raiders East stuck one of its growing collection of long knives in Lynch's back. The Shock and Awe campaign rolls on."

There is no room for sentiment in today's NFL.

Downtime for 'Skins' scouts

The St. Louis Rams probably did Redskins owner Dan Snyder a favor last week when they matched Washington's six-year, $15 million offer for cornerback Jerametrius Butler.

If the Rams hadn't matched, the Redskins would have had one pick in the draft -- their first-round pick, fifth overall -- because they would have had to give up a fifth-round pick for Butler and they've traded away the rest of their selections.

Snyder, who had just three draft picks last year, isn't getting much for his scouting budget and hasn't figured out that draft picks are valuable in the salary cap era because they're young, cheaper players.

Snyder keeps tossing money and draft picks around as if he were tossing confetti in the air. He has spent more than $50 million in signing bonuses this year.

Eventually, the bill is going to come due, probably starting in 2006, and the Redskins' roster could be shredded.

It also might mean that coach Joe Gibbs will be on the scene only for the short term.

He may not want to deal with the mess in a couple of years. There's also health issues for Gibbs, who is diabetic. Gibbs is 63 and says he won't sleep in his office three nights a week during the season the way he did in Gibbs I.

Yet the first three nights of free agency, he didn't leave his office until 6:30 a.m. -- yes, a.m. -- and was back working at 10:30 a.m.

What's going to happen when he's game-planning during the season to face Bill Parcells' Cowboys? Is he going to leave the office at midnight? Not likely.

Snyder's courting of free agents included treating them to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant with the coaches. As if the big checks weren't enough to attract them.

Gibbs may turn the team around quickly, but the foundation is being built on quicksand.

NFL loses veteran

The ranks of the Pete Rozelle lieutenants who helped build the NFL keep thinning.

Val Pinchbeck, who played a major role is putting together the schedule for decades, died last week at age 73 in New York.

Pinchbeck had "retired" to Tampa in recent years, but still made frequent visits to NFL headquarters in New York to lend a hand to the schedule, which is likely to be released for 2004 in another month.

Quotable

"It's like a storybook ending," defensive tackle Ted Washington on moving from the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots to the 4-12 Oakland Raiders.

This story includes information obtained from interviews, other beat writers, web sites and news service reports.